San Francisco Tattoo Artists

Here are some of the best San Francisco tattoo artists and shops according to our research. If you think we should add anyone to the list or if you see anything that should be edited, contact us by clicking here. These artists are in no particular order, so make sure to spend some time looking through their portfolios to see which artist best suits your tattoo idea.

Danny Boy Smith

Sweet Cicely Daniher

Holly Ellis

Jason Storey

Mike Davis

Gary Royal

Amy Zager

Tattoo Styles: Watercolor

Tattoo Profile: Every tattoo I work on is custom for each of my clients. We’ll chat about your concept and look at some artwork so I can get a good idea of your style, ensure that I’m the best artist for your design (hey, I gotta make sure it’s worth the wait!) and come up with a composition. It’s great to gather a variety of references from photographs and artwork to fully flesh out your design. Expect a digital sketch a week or so ahead of your appointment so we’re ready to rock when you’re here.

Mary Joy

Weston Weller

Eric Jones

Jen Lee

Jared Bent

Katie Gray

Adrian Sanchez

Deanna Wardin

Tattoo Profile: I am a shop co-owner and tattoo artist at Tattoo Boogaloo in the heart of North Beach in San Francisco, California. Because of my varied interests, It now seems that a lot of my tattoos look like paintings with elements of graphic design, and a lot of my illustrations look like tattoos.

Colin Stevens

Feo Berumen

Samantha Sue

Chris Barrientos

One of the most famous tattoo studios in the San Francisco area is Mission Ink Tattoo & Piercing. Located right in the middle of the Mission District, Mission Ink is known for hiring some of the top talent in the city and they have always been near the top of the list when it comes to consistently positive reviews. They’re also very helpful to new customers, giving them all of the information they need about the tattooing process and aftercare. Not only do they have a very highly-rated tattooing business, they also get plenty of rave reviews about their piercing as well.

While Mission Ink Tattoo & Piercing is an excellent place to get a tattoo for plenty of people, that does not necessarily mean that it is the perfect spot for you to get a tattoo in San Francisco. What matters the most is that you are able to find a place that you are comfortable in and that you feel can do a stupendous job on your particular designs. While you can do a lot of great research online to find some tattoo studios that you like in San Francisco, you will still want to visit all of your favorites before you make your final decision. That way you will know for sure where you are most comfortable.

Instead of searching around for the ideal tattoo shop for you, instead you could choose to try to find a great tattoo artist in San Francisco. Some of the most popular tattooists in the city include Tex Buss, Don Ed Hardy, Jesse Tuesday, Yoshi Suzuki, Mike Stapleton, and Joe Kelly. Each of these artists is known for bringing something different to the tattooing game, allowing them to stand out from the very large crowd of artists in the area.

When searching for a tattoo artist in San Francisco, you will want to keep a few things in mind. You will not only want to look at how “good” the overall designs that they make are, you will also want to look at their specific styles. Maybe some of them specialize in shadow work and include it in most of their designs, or maybe they specialize in a specific type of tattoo. Looking through a lot of portfolios will help you to understand the differences between the tattoo artists in San Francisco and will greatly increase your chances of finding the perfect one to hire.

What’s great about tattooing in San Francisco is that you can be sure that no matter what type of tattoo you need, there will be a perfect match for you somewhere in the city. A lot of the top artists from around the country move to San Francisco because of its flourishing tattoo scene, so you are definitely in luck if you happen to be there when you want to get inked. If you have an idea of what you want and the type of style you want it done in, a little bit of research on the local talent should help you to figure out where you should go.

Character of San Francisco

San Francisco is a handsome, cool, worldly, and elegant seaport whose breathtaking views and steep streets make for a really beautiful scene to take it. If you ask people from the area, they will tell you the people that inhabit San Francisco are sophisticated people who enjoy good food, music and art. The kids of San Francisco should be envied as Nelson Doubleday’s wife said. According to her, kids will grow up thinking all cities are awesome. To the people that live there, San Francisco is a magical place that almost feels like their own island.

San Francisco has had to deal with urban life realities since World War II. These include water and air pollution, congestion, vandalism and violence and an overall decaying of the inner city. The makeup of this city has been impacted by families, namely white and middle class, leaving for the suburbs and leaving the city with a higher population of older and people that haven’t been married. These days, one of two residents of San Francisco are considered to be “nonwhite”, and in this case we are talking African Americans, Filipino, Samoan, East Asian, Native American, Vietnamese or Latin Americans. The dreams they have often require a realization that doesn’t have much to do with the romantic ideas we have of San Francisco. Both the realities and the dreams are crucial because they are what makes the fabric of the city and what makes San Francisco known as the Paradox by the Bay.

Even though the people that reside in San Francisco complain about high cost of living pushing people out, congestion, homelessness, and talk of the days of old, the majority of the people that still reside in the city still believe that San Francisco is one of the most colorful, distinctive and attractive places to live and that is still one of the premier cities in the United States.

Landscape of the City

Roughly square and full of hills, San Francisco takes up a peninsula’s northern tip. To the south of the city lies the San Mateo county suburbs, to the northwest and west of San Francisco you will find the Pacific Ocean, and to the northeast and east you can find the San Francisco Bay.

Of all the hills that lie under the city of San Francisco, the most notable hills are Mount Sutro, Twin Peaks and Mount Davidson and all of these hills have an elevation of 900 feet. The best known hill in the area would be the infamous Nob Hill, and this is where you will find giant mansions owned by “nobs” built in the 1870’s, a neighborhood once alive with flashy wickedness, and Telegraph Hill which at one time looked down over the Barbary Coast. The downtown streets of San Francisco travel up and down slopes and make new drivers nervous because of the prejudice of the planners who were who favored a square grid. In addition, this style of grid made cable cars more than just a sentimental relic and allowed people to ride and at the same time, taking in a wonderful view of the bay.

A drowned river valley, the San Francisco Bay was flooded during the last glacial ice sheet melted. Profitable and enthusiastic filling of the tidelands has condensed the area at an average high tide that is now 435 square miles but in 1880, it was around 700 square miles. There is more than half of the San Francisco Bay that is still able to be filled, however, the state legislature formed the Bay Conservation and Development Commission in 1965 to regulate future landfill developments. The bay comes in at 13 miles wide at its widest point, 357 feet at its deepest spot, it’s in the area of the Golden Gate which is a thin channel that stretches from Marin county and the peninsula to the north part of San Francisco that connects the Pacific Ocean and the bay. The max amount of water that runs into the Pacific Ocean from the Golden gate adds up to about seven times the flow of the Mississippi River at the mouth.

The natural islands of Yerba Buena, the man made Treasure Island and Alcatraz sit within a part San Francisco Bay that sits inside of the city limits. Treasure Island was made to a spot to have the 1939 world’s fair and they later turned it into a naval base. From 1934 to 1963, Alcatraz was known as the prison in the United States that was completely escape proof and was known as the most notorious maximum security prison. However, a multi tribal group of Native Americans stormed the island and claimed it as their own in 1969, after the Federal Bureau of Prisons gave up on the decaying prison. They were evicted by force in 1971. In 1972, Alcatraz Island ended up joining the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Since then, Alcatraz has become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the nation.

San Francisco Weather

The climate in San Francisco ranges all over the place depending on the time of year. In the spring season, San Francisco is temperate and sunny, in the summer it’s cool and foggy, autumn brings warmth and sun, while the winter months proved the rain and mild weather needed after a warm fall. The average max temperature is 63 degrees F and the average minimum sits at 51 degrees F. The average rainfall for the area is around 21 inches and almost all of it comes during the period between November and April. Two thirds of the day in San Francisco is covered in sunshine which makes it a really pleasant place to visit. However, the one type of weather that is a mainstay in the bay area is the fog which usually doesn’t pass until the middle of the day.

No matter how you look at it, San Francisco is worth the time to visit. Between the historical sites and great modern vibe, you will be hard pressed to run out of things to do while you are visiting.

San Francisco, California has a rich tattoo history. Featuring shops such as One Shot Tattoo, body Manipulations, Picture Machine Tattoo, Cold Steel America, Mom’s Body Shop Tattoo & Piercing, and Rose Gold’s Tattoo & Piercing, San Francisco is a great destination if you’re looking for some new ink. With a population of around 813,000, there are lots of potential customers for the parlors in town. Yelp currently lists 109 different shops when searching for “tattoo” in San Francisco. Google Places lists 529 different tattoo shops in the San Francisco area, which shows how competitive the city truly is. Seventh Son Tattoo currently boasts one of the largest selections of artists in the area, listing the following artists on their site: Luke Stewart, Erik Rieth, Jeff Croci, Joey Armstrong, Nick Chaboya, Gordon Combs, Cecelia Altamirano, Greg Rojas, and Orly Locquaio. When doing research for your artist, we suggest not paying too much attention to price because quality is much more important when you’re going to be living with the artwork for the rest of your life.